Chapter 3

"What?" Kirk said.

"What?" Colclough said.

Tay made no response, but his shoulders sagged as if he were shouldering a great burden.

Briscoe, thoroughly put out with events, approached the barrier and signalled for his release. Indeed, with his attention devoted to Colclough and Tay, he had almost forgotten the doctor's presence.

"My patient" — well, kudos to the doctor for not saying prisoner — "is suffering from some illness, the like of which I have never before seen. Until I can determine what it is and whether it is a contagious infection, I consider it prudent he be kept in isolation. Since he has been aboard for the last four days, who knows who has been exposed to this condition, hence the requirement for quarantine."

So near, so far. "Doctor, do you not think quarantine a little excessive?" he asked, with scant hope of agreement. Aside from the danger to Siran, the thought of being stranded on this vessel, for who knew how long, made his blood run cold.

"I was not aware that, amongst their other accomplishments, starship captains held medical degrees, too."

"Briscoe!" Colclough said.

"I am serious, Captain."

"My brother is not contagious."

Briscoe eyed Tay. "Indeed? Are you a doctor, sir?"

"I am not a healer. I am Vulcan. My brother is Vulcan. The," Tay cast around for the correct word, "treatment he requires is on Vulcan."

Briscoe speared Tay with a look. "What is he suffering from, then?"

"His condition affects only Vulcans," Tay said, sidestepping the question.

"So?" Briscoe said, unmoved. "We are bound for Port Cochrane. I was astonished, really quite astonished to discover the number of Rigellian ships that call in there in the space of a few days. You are aware of the similarity between Rigellian and Vulcan physiology, are you not?"

Tay blanked his features and said nothing.

"Gentlemen," said Briscoe, "unless I can determine what his illness is, he's not going anywhere, not where the safety of the ship and even the people at the ship's next port of call and beyond are concerned." Briscoe appealed to Colclough directly. "Captain Kirk has let you hear what you want to hear. Do you want to know what's on the other side of that coin, Captain Colclough?"

"Not especially", Colclough muttered in an undertone.

Briscoe had no intention of sparing him. "If you were contemplating over-ruling me, Captain, then I would urge you remember the good ship Tethys. That snagged Colclough's attention in a hurry, as well it might. Seventy years later her notoriety lived on. Such a small ship to spread infection across a thirty light year arc of space. Fifteen million died; one colony world virtually wiped out and had to be reseeded from scratch. When she was finally apprehended, no living creature remained aboard. The ship and her late lamented crew ended their days towed into the cleansing fires of the nearest star to where she was found.

He had seen that look on his CMO's face, too, and his heart sank. Of course, McCoy would never budge where the spectre of a medical disaster might lay in the offing, nor would he expect anything different. McCoy, however, would not exult in the opportunity to throw his weight around as Briscoe was now doing. Colclough gave his fellow captain a beset look. He sympathised. He loathed bullies on principal. No recourse at this point other than to keep his mouth shut, though. What was personal convenience when compared to the potential for the spread of pestilence?

Tay turned a speculative eye over Siran's cell and the close quarters of the brig, as though measuring the limits of the brig's containment. Hemming Vulcans into a corner — that never ended well. Visions of jail breaks or resorts to more drastic solutions populated his imagination; the last thing he needed was a surplus of Vulcan initiative.

"Tay," he said, to draw the Vulcan's attention to him. He leant in and dropped his voice. "I think I have the means to allay Doctor Briscoe's concerns about an infection."

Tay attempted to maintain a proper Vulcan detachment, amid the boy's precarious control. To allow Tay to get it together, he did the only thing he thought polite, and ignored the emotional déshabille before him in favour of a close study of the deck plating, which apparently offered a source of much fascination. Even so, Tay had drawn back a step, so utterly appalled at the prospect of what the doctor would likely have to be made party to, it required an added hasty, "I will keep what's required to the bare minimum. But if I get Briscoe to see reason, is there a way your family can send a vessel to rendezvous with Gloriana?"

"Captain, my family are not as eminent as Commander Spock's, nor do they have such resources at their disposal." A discreet eye cast over Tay's clothing, which one might suppose to be his best, and thereby employed to impress Captain Colclough with an impression of stolid reliability, proved to be nothing more than clean, but well used attire. Such an assessment made him wonder if Tay's offer of reparations might seriously dent the family assets for decades to come.

Tay gazed at him, all expression now scrupulously wiped clean. "We were headed for Praahk," the name threw him, until he placed it as the Vulcan name for a Rigellian colony, "where we would make a connection for Vulcan, but with the liner's diversion, that connection has been missed. The original flight plan would have brought us to Vulcan the day after next."

The absence in Siran's eyes amounted to a harbinger of an imminent descent into the plak-tow. Tay's timetable, however much it was now shot to hell, offered a disquieting impression that they had been cutting it a bit fine. Tay returned to his scrutiny of the brig; his gaze flicked over Colclough and Briscoe. Measuring the odds? Please, no. Tay's family having no resources of their own to call upon complicated matters. A fast Starfleet shuttle headed his way, but he didn't think Starfleet would take kindly to him re-purposing her mission. There was also a less generous desire on his part that he wanted to return to Enterprise. In any case, a starship captain's authority extended only so far. Yes, he could play the errand of mercy angle he'd recommended to Colclough, but it would necessitate justifying the detour with a disclosure of more information than Tay, or any Vulcan, would care for. Better the low key approach.

"Okay," he said in the briskest of tones. "Plan B it is then."

Time for Gloriana's communications officer to strut more of her stuff.

xxx

Kirk opted to take the second of his two calls, this one to Gerry Kerrigan, in the privacy of his quarters.

"Jim Kirk, as I live and breathe. I nearly fell over, when I saw your call id. You traded in Enterprise for the lap of luxury, then?"

He shuddered. "Don't even go there, Gerry."

Gerry laughed. "How the hell are you?"

"In need of a favour."

Gerry's voice turned dry. "I owe you several, as I recall."

"Not keeping count, here."

"You should. A girl could take advantage."

"I need a ride — and, no, that's not supposed to be a double-entendre — I have some friends who need to get to Vulcan in a hurry."

"What constitutes hurry?"

"As in yesterday. I'm desperate, Gerry. I'll take a garbage scow as long as it's fast."

"Oh hell, Jim, my people are light years away. I'm the only one close. I'm crewing the Isolde back to homeport. In fact, I'm really close to where that fat liner of yours is hogging all the room in the shipping lanes, but the Isolde is not exactly an appropriate choice just right now."

He searched his memory for the vessels that formed Gerry's fleet. Isolde was a small courier. Too small for the power demands of a transporter, but otherwise very fast. Gerry typically used her to ship either people or expensive high-end cargo items that had to be somewhere in a hurry. Promising.

"Define what is not exactly an appropriate choice."

Gerry let out a huffy breath. "Oh, you'll love this. My last job was to ship a Tellarite's pedigree livestock from Tellar Prime to Tellar Secundus. Don't ask me how, I've not ruled out mischief from my competitors looking for fun at my expense, but their shipping crates opened in transit and they escaped; docile, gentle things, so that wasn't really a problem. The issue was that space travel did not agree with them; it caused them to gush from both ends. My client was unhappy his animals arrived in port seriously dehydrated and made life difficult, hell, next to impossible, for me to bring in a clean-up crew. In the end, breaking orbit and leaving for our homeport seemed like the simplest solution. I'm not kidding, Jim. The Isolde is ankle deep in sh—, in manure. Think that any place for Vulcans?"

"I'll take it, Gerry. My Vulcan friends may never smell another thing, but beggars can't be choosers."

Gerry sounded dubious. "I'm not so sure about this. It doesn't present a good image of my fleet."

"Believe me, they'll have other things on their mind. Anyway it won't hurt them to breathe through their mouths for the nine hour stretch to Vulcan."

"Seven," she corrected with an automatic pride for her ship. "Very well, Captain Kirk, I am altering course to rendezvous with Gloriana. Will you inform her captain to expect me, sir."

"Will do, Captain. ETA?"

"Three and a half hours. Shade under, probably. See you then, Jim. Isolde out."

xxx

In his cabin, Kirk packed his few items of gear ready for his own departure, and listened with one ear to a news broadcast of the latest developments on Vulcan. All rather depressing, the anti-Federation isolationists were gaining traction and besieging T'Pau's power base. If this was now news for general consumption, he'd bet T'Pau's political clout had taken a harder wallop than generally known. Not much of a bet, his position in Starfleet granted him access to more intelligence than the average Federation citizen.

The door pinged for his attention. He answered it, thinking it would be Tay. "Doctor Briscoe."

Unbidden, the doctor invited himself inside. "I thought you would be pleased to hear I have lifted the quarantine."

"Thank you, Doctor Briscoe, but I was already aware of that," he said, and went back to his task.

"You know, I do deplore captains taking it upon themselves to involve themselves in medical decisions." A grin flickered into being. "Even if they are right."

"It is Doctor McCoy who is right, sir, as I am sure perusal of his report proved." He paused in his packing. "You did receive Doctor McCoy's report?"

Briscoe fidgeted. "I have. What little there was of it."

"But quite sufficient, I understand, for you to confirm that what is going on with Siran is not an infectious process and he is no danger to others." He narrowed his eyes at his visitor. Something was off. Briscoe offered the complaint about overstepping professional boundaries in the guise of friendly raillery, but the tension in his shoulders and the set of his jaw bespoke a real annoyance. Why would Briscoe think him uninformed of the lifting of the quarantine? Answer: he had been under no such misapprehension — he wanted something. Doctor Sweetness and Light gave him another friendly grin, whose brittleness betrayed he seethed inside, and that clinched it.

The Briscoe smile congealed, before the man wrestled it back into shape. "That boy may not be infectious, Captain Kirk, but I don't agree he's not a danger to others. I had two of our crew to patch up to prove otherwise. I've told Colclough he should keep him penned in the brig, until he's ready to leave." He stared back, expecting disagreement, and was surprised when all he received was a comment his recommendation was probably a good idea.

"The ship coming to collect Siran and the others can attach to the brig's docking port. My young friends should be off Gloriana's hands within the next hour." He spared a gloomy eye for the crushed and sorry state of his dress uniform. "I hear Siran has stopped throwing himself at the brig's force field."

"Yes, he's quieted down. His brother is in there with him and his presence seems to have calmed him."

Or perhaps Tay had informed Siran of the pending arrival of Gerry's ship.

"Sex."

He paused in his attempt to smooth out creases in his tunic. "Thank you, but you're not my type."

Briscoe ignored the quip. "It has to do with reproduction, doesn't it? I've not had much time, but enough to perform some tests of my own, the results of which are startling. It would make a fascinating topic for a scientific paper."

One that might very possibly make his name. That he had presented himself in person to pass on the news about releasing the ship from quarantine suddenly made a deal more sense. If he were to guess, Briscoe had received no help from Tay and Siran, so he was about to appeal to the person, who had secured Siran's deliverance. His Vulcan first officer was famous. Did Briscoe see him as the Vulcan whisperer, the purveyor of Vulcan secrets?

The hell with that.

Just as well, then, Briscoe was absolutely no good at this. He summoned up his twelve year old self and smirked, cranking the dial all the way into obnoxious. "Sex? If you are going to ask Gloriana's Vulcan guests all they can tell you about the birds and the bees, can I watch?"

Briscoe failed to conceal a glower.

"Maybe they can offer an opinion on: if love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?" He waggled his eyebrows at his unwanted guest. "Or, as a man of science, you might prefer: gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."

"Captain Kirk, I—"

"I'd prefer you stuck to lingerie, though. Indeed, maybe you could ask them if they have a particular taste in lingerie?"

"Kirk—"

"It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all."

"Kirk, I came to ask for your assistance. I need a blood sample."

"You'll have to clear that with Doctor McCoy. I don't think he approves of other doctors trying to muscle in on his patients, particularly, when they're Starfleet."

Briscoe blinked. "What? No, I don't mean you. Why would I need your blood? Kirk, those Vulcans listen to you. Now, they owe you."

Whoa, bad, bad answer. Nothing would persuade him that any one deserved to be subjected to treatment as if they were no more than a bug, with an eviscerating scalpel poised to do its worst, nor would he have any truck with the notion of a debt incurred for his troubles.

"People say you can't live without love, but I think oxygen is more important." He continued in a similar vein, a stream of smart ass quips, mindless small talk, puerile humour. Not that Briscoe heeded such an impediment to his purpose, manfully swallowing his annoyance and attempting to deflect the conversation into a more serious tone. He took that as an ominous warning of Briscoe's desire to pursue his investigation; any less determined an individual would have left his company long since. He should warn Tay.

His gear neatly stacked, he made a show of looking at it in a none too subtle hint, until a silence stretched between them and became awkward. Briscoe grudgingly took his leave, no longer able to ignore that he'd outstayed his welcome.

xxx

Kirk covered his surprise at how fine Captain Colclough cut his arrival at the brig, appearing just as Gerry began her final approach to dock with Gloriana. The liner's captain seemed untroubled his Starfleet guest was now de facto running this dog and pony show, with not a peep out of him over Kirk engaging Kerrigan's services. In fact, Colclough was back to extending his Starfleet guest all courtesies, ecstatic to have this headache in the guise of troublesome Vulcans off his hands. Briscoe was absent, for which he offered up grateful thanks and he was pretty sure Colclough matched the sentiment. The doctor had the mien of a man thinking maybe he should reconsider his position, no matter that McCoy had provided all necessary data to disprove an infection.

The force field barrier was down. A meek and disorientated Siran stood next to his brother; the other Vulcans kept close order, as if to blockade further interference. Briscoe must have been at them again.

Colclough sent him a curious stare. "Is something bothering you, Captain Kirk?"

"That docking port." Not a lie. It so had. Bless the vagaries of ship design. "Why place it here? It offers the possibility of a security breach."

Gloriana's captain tried to contain amusement, failed. "This is not Starfleet, Captain. That port was part of the ship's original design and this facility added afterwards. It was intended for the odd rowdy passenger, who partook of a little too much liquid cheer, and made themselves a nuisance to my other passengers. I am not sure a drunk passenger would have friends with the requisite resources to spring him from detention. An access port is a moot consideration, I find. At least I thought so until today; I never anticipated its use for this."

The captain might have continued, but Isolde's docking clamps mated with the Gloriana's brig port, established a hard seal and the airlocks opened into Isolde's deck.

Beside him the Vulcan's recoiled as one.

No, the air hadn't actually turned a shade of puce, just his imagination at work. That was … unexpectedly pungent.

"Shit!" Colclough gagged and looked like he would prefer to stop breathing.

"Yep," Kirk said, "that'll make your eyes water, alright."

Gerry appeared from the dim interior of her ship. "Next stop, Vulcan." She grinned at Kirk, but mindful of her manners, addressed her next words to Colclough. "Permission to come aboard, Captain."

"Permission granted. You are very welcome, Captain Kerrigan."

"For not too long, I hope." Gerry's grin widened and she stepped forward. "I'd give you a hug, Jim, but under the circumstances, I'd better not. I'm not sure I'm going to get the reek out of my own clothes."

"Saves Hakim from being jealous."

"You wish."

"Which reminds me, I haven't offered you congratulations on your engagement. He finally wore you down, huh?"

Gerry blushed, something he thought he would never see, but he was even more pleased at how happy she looked. Embarrassing a friend, though, had not been his design. He changed the subject to talk of her ship, told her he thought she was a beauty.

"I thought so, too, until my encounter with my Tellarite client's finest bloodstock." Gerry, mindful of a tight schedule, turned business-like. "Jim, will you introduce me to my passengers?

He caught Tay's eye and the Vulcan stepped forward for introductions to be made. The other two were called Samel and the healer he named as Isran; Tay introduced both as his cousins.

Isran sent Tay a look as if to demand this was for real. He sympathised. The journey ahead was going to test anyone's gag reflex. Tay offered him a mildly enquiring raised eyebrow in response, which conveyed Isran was not compelled to go with them. Isran gazed at the open maw of the ship, straightened his shoulders, and returned Tay's look with one of determined assent.

Gerry trained that business-like expression on her intended passengers. "I hope Captain Kirk was totally frank about the status of my ship; I can get you to Vulcan in approximately seven hours, but as you may have already gathered, it is not a journey you will find remotely comfortable."

"Discomforts are of no consequence."

Gerry considered Tay for a moment. "Alrighty then, lets get this show on the road."

"Kirk, stop!" he finally had his answer where Briscoe had gone. "Colclough, you cannot let them board that vessel!"

xxx

Author's Note

Attribution of quotes used are:

"It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all." - James Thurber